Page 37 of K-Pop Double Life

“Three suspects,” he said. “All with opportunity and access.”

“And all still working at Starhouse, with continued access to everything we’re doing.” I felt a chill run down my spine. “They could be watching our communications right now.”

“Then we cut them out of the loop,” he said. “From now on, all tour communications go through encrypted channels only. Eun-ji, Sunny, and Jason get access. Nobody else.”

“Eun-ji won’t like cutting out the rest of the managers.”

“Eun-ji will understand when we explain that one of them might be trying to kill her biggest asset.” Liam was already typing on his tablet, a towel around his waist. “I’ll set up a secure server tonight. We’ll brief the team in the morning.”

I watched him work. He was efficient, methodical, making the digital world safer one encryption key at a time. “What would I do without you?” I said quietly.

He looked up, smiled. “Probably figure it out eventually. But it would take you longer and you’d be crankier about it.”

“Accurate.”

He closed his tablet and pulled me down beside him. “Now sleep. Tomorrow we hunt for a traitor, and you’ll need to be sharp.”

I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come easily.

Somewhere out there, someone who worked for the same company as Jin, someone who sat in the same meetings, walked the same halls, maybe even smiled at him in passing, was planning to hurt him.

13

NEED TO KNOW

LIAM — PARIS

Monday May 25, 2026

The briefing room was a conference space off the hotel lobby that Jason’s team had swept an hour earlier. No devices, no staff access, a folding table pulled into the center and twelve chairs arranged around it with the purposeful informality of a military situation room trying not to look like one.

I’d asked for nine AM. Everyone was seated by eight fifty-five, which told Aidan and me something useful about the team and their concerns.

“Aidan has collected a lot of personnel information as well as background on the emotional reality all of you face as part of a major musical act. Now I’m going to get into the tactical methods we’re going to implement.”

Sunny had brought coffee and a printed agenda she hadn’t shared in advance. It was clearly a tour manager’s instinct to stay one step ahead. Jason sat with his hands folded, watching the door until it closed. Eun-ji had her tablet open and her reading glasses already on. The styling team occupied one side of the table — Sang-hoon; Mina, the second stylist; Wan-suk, the makeup artist; and Du-ri, the wardrobe mistress. The other tech workers sat across from them. The group members were not present; this wasn’t for them.

Grace Han sat at the far end with a notebook already open. She’d drawn a line down the center of the page, dividing it into two columns. The two regular Starhouse security officers stood by the wall, even though I’d invited them to take seats. Both were former Korean soldiers, young and fit, only about ten years older than the singers they were protecting.

I started with the package.

“Yesterday we found an unauthorized item in Jin’s dressing room at the Accor Arena. A framed photograph, taken backstage at Cannes, with written text that indicated surveillance and intent.” I kept my voice neutral, factual. “Jason’s team has submitted it to the gendarmerie for forensic processing. We are treating this as a credible escalation, not an isolated incident.”

The room absorbed that quietly. Eun-ji’s pen stopped moving. The wardrobe mistress looked at Sang-hoon.

“What that means operationally,” I continued, “is that someone had access to two venues. Cannes and Paris. They photographed Jin during a costume change, which means backstage access, not just a ticket. And they had a key card or a working knowledge of the dressing room assignment system at Accor, because Jin’s room was locked.”

“All the dressing room assignments come from the venue,” Sunny said. “We submit the rider three weeks in advance. Anyone on the Starhouse management team has access to that document. Unfortunately the system only tracks changes to forms, not who reads them.”

I pulled up the venue layout on the screen behind me. “For now, here’s what changes.”

I walked them through it methodically. The new credential rotation, the two-person rule for any room access, the revised transport windows. Every external commitment would now be pre-cleared through Jason’s team twenty-four hours in advance. Any gift packages, flowers, or deliveries would be intercepted at the building’s loading dock, not at the stage door, and X-rayed before processing.

Jason addressed his two officers. “You both can alternate receiving gifts at the loading dock and standing guard outside the dressing rooms. I’ll set up a rotation with you.” Both nodded.

“What about in-person press?” Grace asked. She had been writing steadily. Not shorthand, I noticed, but full sentences. She’d divided her columns neatly: protocol on the left, what looked like timing/access on the right.

“In-person press is the highest-exposure element,” I said. “Walk us through how that currently works.”